Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster

Friday March 11th, 2011 an earthquake hits off the Eastern coast of Japan causing the automatic shut down of units 1, 2, and 3. Units 4, 5, and 6 had been shut down previously due to outages, but the emergency diesel generators are activated to provide power to the emergency cooling systems. Soon after a tsunami hits the plant and the EDGs stop working and an evacuation is ordered for people within 3km of the plant. The knock out of the cooling systems and reactors caused meltdowns and the release of radioactivity. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from an exclusion zone around the plant as the workers struggled to to bring the reactors back to a normal level.

The release of radioactive materials raised not only environmental concerns, but health concerns as well. Monitoring posts to the north-west recorded radiation levels at 680 microSieverts per hour the following Monday, which is equivalent to four months of natural background radiation. The people caught in the evacuation zone were given potassium iodide pills to protect against thyroid cancer. Radioactive iodine is easily absorbed through the thyroid causing tumors, but the pills help saturate the gland and obstruct the absorption of anything harmful. Workers who were exposed to the highest amount of radiation may experience radiation sickness which can damage tissue, prevent bone marrow from created new blood cells, and result in death. Doctors do believe that people who were not in direct contact with the Fukushima Plant or in the surrounding area that they would not suffer a great deal of illness. They do say that radiation can spread by the particles being on people’s clothes and obviously breathing it in.

Tepco published at 6-9 month plan on April 17th, 2011 for dealing with the disabled reactors. At the end of August 2011 they announced their general plan with removing fuel from the four units. They are doing everything they can to rebuild and remediate any more problems caused by the explosion. The most important thing they did was to find the location of the leaks, so they can fix them and shield them from any future leaks. In the next 30-40 years the damaged reactors will be removed, although that sounds long time, its the normal amount of time of a nuclear plant. They are making sure they take the necessary steps to ensure safety and make sure the workers are not afraid to come back to work. The explosion has changed a lot of people’s minds on the idea of nuclear plants, like Germany. Germany is on a green movement to make sure they never experience the same thing.

http://www.oecd-nea.org/press/2011/NEWS-04.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18718057

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html